Research Bio

Our overall laboratory research program focuses on studying human viral immunology and pathogenesis in two model systems: HIV and dengue virus.

In the HIV model, we current investigate a number of issues including but not limited to (a) Measurement of the global and epitope-specific T cell immune responses elicited in human subjects who have received candidate HIV vaccines. (b) Improvement of the clonal diversity of CTL responses by manipulating pMHC structure employing computational tools (in collaboration with Dr Lee of Computation Biology).

In the dengue virus model, we have several ongoing projects: (a) Investigation of the increased vascular permeability during dengue-virus infection in an endothelial cell culture model (in collaboration with Dr Simpson-Haidaris of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine) ; (b) Examining intrinsic mechanisms of antibody-dependent-enhancement of dengue virus infection in primary human cells and cell lines; and (c) Assessing the in vivo immunological and virological correlates of dengue disease severity (in collaboration with clinical investigators in China and Taiwan).